Though his true date of birth remains unknown, the birthday of famed playwright and poet William Shakespeare is traditionally observed on April 23, the same day on which he died 52 years later. Since his death, his plays, such as Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, have been performed and studied all over the world. Some scholars have speculated that Shakespeare did not write all of the works attributed to him. Who do they suggest was responsible for authoring the Shakespearean canon? More…Discuss

The illegitimate child of a courtesan, Bernhardt was encouraged to pursue a theatrical career by one of her mother’s lovers. Her acting teachers did not consider her a particularly promising student, but they turned out to be sorely mistaken; Bernhardt went on to become the premier romantic and tragic actress of her day, touring all over the world during her six-decade career on stage and screen. What morbid possession may have helped “the Divine Sarah” reach her potential as a tragedienne?More…Discuss

To be, or not to be: that is the question:Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to sufferThe slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;No more; and by a sleep to say we endThe heart-ache and the thousand natural shocksThat flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummationDevoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;For in that sleep of death what dreams may comeWhen we have shuffled off this mortal coil,Must give us pause: there’s the respectThat makes calamity of so long life;For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,The insolence of office and the spurnsThat patient merit of the unworthy takes,When he himself might his quietus makeWith a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,To grunt and sweat under a weary life,But that the dread of something after death,The undiscover’d country from whose bournNo traveller returns, puzzles the willAnd makes us rather bear those ills we haveThan fly to others that we know not of?Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;And thus the native hue of resolutionIs sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,And enterprises of great pith and momentWith this regard their currents turn awry,